The Dust of Life
by Vendelyn Silverhawk
Summary: Before S.H.I.E.L.D., before Captain America woke up, there was a woman whose ledger was dripping red, and a man who couldn't even remember having one. Orders constituted the sum of their existence, their effectiveness determined by their kill count, by how few questions they asked. There was a hotel, a bath, whispered words, stolen moments. Captain America: The Winter Soldier fic.


**A/N: So, I've been absent for a while and will be for the next few months (sorry for those of you still waiting for an update on "Walking Shadow," I haven't dropped it, it's just exam month and I'm casually dying). But I wrote this piece after seeing **_Captain America: The Winter Soldier _**and wrote it in such a frenzy that I couldn't resist editing it and putting it up here. **

**Background: takes place during Natasha's days as an agent for the Red Room/KGB, going under my headcannon that she did have to have the occasional mind-wipe. Bucky still belongs to HYDRA, but he and Natasha have clashed over the years and found a strange equilibrium, between the missing memories and all the red dripping from their ledgers, they've found that the only thing they can be certain about is the uncertainty of ever seeing the other again. **

**Just assume they're speaking Russian.**

JNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJN

_War isn't over when it ends _

_Some pictures never leave your mind _

_They are the faces of the children _

_The ones we left behind_

_They're call Bui-Doi _

_The dust of life _

_Conceived in hell _

_And born in strife _

_They are the living reminders _

_Of all the good we failed to do _

_We can't forget _

_Must not forget _

_That they are all _

_Our children too_

_These kids hit walls on every side _

_They don't belong in any place _

_Their secret they can't hide _

_It's printed on their face_

"Bui-Doi" from _Miss Saigon_ the musical

JNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJN

It was cold.

She remembered that. It was cold but the water was warm on her aching body as she sank down into it, fighting the urge of her muscles to clench and stiffen at the quick temperature change.

Little eddies of steam rose as pink swirled from places where they had broken skin, but she was too busy reveling in her first hot bath since... Since before she could remember, to notice or care.

There wasn't much time- the extraction team would be at the drop zone before the sun was up. Three hours, maybe- four at most. She should get as clean as she could- no use letting the hot water go to waste.

A quarter sized blob of shampoo in her hand, she began washing through the long, thick red locks, eager for some irrational reason to clean away the grease and dirt and blood of the last few days. As she reached to get the top of her scalp, her arm locked, and a long hiss of pain escaped her split lips. It was the damn arm that had gotten hit with the hammer- the warm water had relaxed her so much she had been on the verge of forgetting the massive hand-sized blue-purple bruise and the fact that just an hour ago the shoulder has been dislocated. It looked like only part of her hair would get clean, then.

Lowering the arm gently so as not to wrench it again, she froze when she heard something outside the bathroom door.

She had paid in full and told the manager she was not to be disturbed.

All of his men had been dead beyond possibility of repair when she left the warehouse.

The extraction team would never come early, never come to her.

One cold hand wound through her hair at the base of her neck, smoothing the skin and messaging it. Her hand flew up and she began to turn but was stopped by five metal fingers locking around her wrist and halting the blow.

"Natalia," a rough voice said, the hand on her neck as soft as a kiss while the other held her wrist in a not-uncomfortable vice-grip.

"They didn't say you were coming," she said, watching the wall as if it were a mirror that could show her the man's reflection.

"They are always one step behind."

"You have gifted handlers. Still don't know who they are?" it was a regular game- a dangerous one- but the man's hands vanished from her. She still did not turn around.

"I have no reason to know."

She had known her whole life who pulled the strings- the Red Room, the KGB, all for the glory of the Motherland. Yet for some reason he did not have any desire to know who gave his orders, and it was a mystery no one from the Red Room had been able to solve in all the years their agents had come into contact with him, the Winter Soldier.

There was the sound of dropping cloths behind her, black shirt and pants joining her own stealth suit, the tap of a mask being drawn away from skin and placed on the sink's edge. For the first time she heard his bellowing breath, his movement, and relaxed further. Her eyes did not avert from their position on the wall as he got into the tub with her, adding his own blood to the water- from the edges of her vision she saw a circular cut around his ankle, bruising on the same leg, and could only imagine what the rest of his body looked like.

No worse than her, probably.

The water level rose when he was fully in the tub, covering her up to her collarbone and him to his mid-chest. Hunched over in the scalding water his metal arm glinted, fingers limp, while his other hand stretched out to her.

Feeling his steadily warming flesh on her shoulder Natalia turned, pushing herself until her back was to his chest. Gently his hands wove back through her hair, messaging in the shampoo to all the places she hadn't previously been able to reach.

When he was done, he tried to withdraw, but this time it was her turn to help him. When she rotated around to face him, she had to make her face impassive as she took in the sight of his body. It was battered beyond belief, a new crusting cut slicing through his lower abdomen. Whatever he had been doing, it hadn't been his usual mission- she supposed it hadn't been for either of them. It was a rare occasion that anyone got close enough to the Black Widow or Winter Soldier to hurt them to this degree. Filling her palms with shampoo, she had him duck his head so she could run her fingers through his dark locks. It hurt not to have seen his face for more than a second- it had been so long she was beginning to forget what it looked like.

When at last she was done she withdrew her fingers from his scalp regretfully, luxuriating in the brief human contact. In their line of work they only touched with intent to kill- it was why they were so dangerous to each other, she and the Winter Soldier- because any other kind of contact was so addicting, and spoke to the human parts of them that were no longer supposed to exist.

"Let me see your face," she said. He raised his head, staring at her with impassive green eyes, but she knew he was looking at her, too, was memorizing everything, just in case.

He had stubble, but it wasn't a bad look for him- it made him look more dangerous than his previously clean-shaven face had, less of a boy soldier. As she looked her memory began to fill in the gaps that she had lost over the years- the strong jaw and full lips that could have once been made for smiling, eyes just as suited to laughter lines as the emptiness of a murderer. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her.

She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

An hour later found them still in the tub, chilling water replaced by an entirely new batch of scalding clearness that kissed their wounds and warmed them as they lay against one another. Both of his arms were wrapped around her waist and chest, like a child's compared to his hulking frame. Her good arm was behind her, curled around the back of his neck, the other resting on his lifted knee.

"Солнышко моё," Natalia whispered when she rested her head against his collarbone, red hair streaming out to color his chest.

She thought she could have stayed there for hours more, but the water was getting cold again and the sun was beginning to peak through the windows of the hotel room. There were people waiting for news of how effective her destruction had been, how complete the death she brought was.

Pulling herself away from him gently, she stepped out of the tub, water streaming from her hair and down her legs. When she was dry and dressed, hair braided, and thick fur coat secured, she looked back at him.

The Winter Soldier was asleep, head leaner back against the tiled side of the tub, mouth partially open. He looked less empty when he was asleep, more... Human. What a novel concept for the two of them.

She wondered when he had last gotten to sleep; a while, judging by the bruise-like shadows under his eyes. It almost bothered her to leave him looking so vulnerable, suddenly so like a little boy, but she knew better than to waste energy worrying over him. He would disappear back to whatever people pulled his strings, and it would be years if they ever saw each other again, but she knew his face now, had memorized it. It would take longer to forget this time.

"Sleep well," she murmured, wishing not for the first time that either of them knew his true name- at least Natalia had that left to her by her handlers. His handlers, most likely, wiped his away for good. Leaning over the tub, she let her fingers trail across his chest, up his collarbone, rest on his cheek.

She paid in full for another night, told the manager to keep everyone away from the room, and left the lobby. Hat on, she blended in with every other citizen in the small, bustling town outside of Kiev, anonymous but for her bright hair painted dark by the water, made small by her hat and thick coat and tight braid.

When she reached the extraction point she said nothing about the Winter Soldier, only that she had paid with cash and no one would trace Ivan's killer back to the secretive woman from the hotel. They loaded her into the plane and flew her back to Moscow. There was no memory wipe this time.

That night, she traced the contours of his face in her mind before falling into the emptiness of an always-dreamless sleep.

JNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJNJN

When he wakes the next night, he remembers someone calling him her sun, a small body that fit into his perfectly and the ghost of fingertips trailing up his bare chest. His human fingers remember running through her silky hair, the smell of her beneath the blood and grime of death.

He goes out the window and calls his extraction team, who pick him up in a cold and barren wasteland miles from the town. They learn that the mission was a success, completed within the allotted three days.

It is good to be clean again, before being put back into cryo.

He recalls too late that there is something he should want to remember, needs to remember, before they say they should wipe him, just to be sure, and put the mouth guard between his teeth. Someone flips the switch. The Winter Soldier does not remember how to fight back.

He remembers the ghost of fingertips trailing up his chest. He remembers something red.

When the ice closes around him again, he remembers that there is something important he has forgotten.

**A/N: The Russian that Natasha calls him means "My sun." Please review and tell me what you think! Maybe suggestions for another Winter Solider fic?**

_Review! I live for them!_


End file.
